Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
11-03-2021
NAYPYITAW/ MYANMAR (BURMA): 10 more people have been killed and injured in Myanmar after security forces opened fire on anti-coup protesters, 
according to witnesses and local media, as Myanmar’s military government accused deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi of accepting illegal payments.
The violence comes after the United Nations Security Council called on the military to “exercise utmost restraint” in its response to peaceful demonstrators and rights group Amnesty International accused the military of adopting battlefield tactics against peaceful demonstrators.
Eight people were killed in the central town of Myaing on Thursday when security forces fired on a protest, one man who took part in the demonstration and helped carry bodies to hospital, told media by telephone. A health worker there confirmed all six deaths.
“We protested peacefully,” the 31-year-old man said. “I couldn’t believe they 
did it.”
One person was killed in the North Dagon district of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, domestic media said. Photographs posted on Facebook showed a man lying prone on the street, bleeding from a head wound.
Myanmar has been in chaos since its military toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1. The power grab, just a decade after the end of 49 years of strict military rule, triggered huge protests nationwide. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners advocacy group said security forces have killed more than 60 protesters and arrested 2,000 others in the ensuing crackdown.
The military spokesman, Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, told a news 
conference in the capital, Naypyitaw, on Thursday that Aung San Suu Kyi had accepted illegal payments worth $600,000 as well as gold while in government.
The information had been verified and many people were being questioned, he added.
He said President Win Myint and several cabinet ministers had also engaged in corruption and that he had pressured the country’s election commission not to act on the military’s reports of irregularities.
Sources reporting from Bangkok in neighboring Thailand, said that Zaw Min Tun had failed to provide evidence of the new allegations, “but we assume that these will be part of new charges which will be used to extend (Aung San Suu Kyi’s) detention,” he said.
‘Killing spree’
The 15-member UN Security Council on Wednesday strongly condemned violence by Myanmar security forces against peaceful protesters, including women, youth and children. “The council calls for the military to exercise utmost restraint and emphasizes that it is following the situation closely,” it said in a statement.
Language that would have condemned the February 1 coup and threatened possible further action was removed from the United Kingdom-drafted text, due to opposition by China, Russia, India and Vietnam.
The Civil Disobedience Movement, a campaign group, said the latest killings 
demonstrate the need for a “stronger message” from the international community.
“Right after the UNSC produces a condemnation statement, the terrorist junta again murdered people in broad daylight. What kind of message does it send to UNSC?” the group said in a post on Twitter.
Amnesty International, meanwhile, accused the military of using an arsenal of battlefield weapons in its “killing spree” against protesters.
In its Thursday report, the human rights group said the weapons include light machine guns, sniper rifles and semi-automatic rifles. It added that those involved in the shootings were “unrepentant commanders already implicated in crimes against humanity” elsewhere in the country. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
